Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:12:37.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Cerne Abbas Giant: the documentary evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Extract

In his account of the changes made to the figure of the Cerne Giant by successive cleanings and restorations during the period 1764–1980, Leslie Grinsell refers to the curious lack of documentary references to the Giant before the middle of the eighteenth century, and also makes it clear that, because of the alterations to the figure, dating on stylistic evidence must necessarily be very tentative (Grinsell, 1980). It is the purpose of this article to review some of the major sources of information relating to Cerne Abbas and to consider this remarkable absence of any mention of the Giant. The complete silence of all the documentary sources is of course totally negative evidence and cannot of itself disprove the existence of the Giant; there is no reason why he should have been mentioned in many of the documents since he lay on no boundary and provided no incom e for landowners or their tenants. But the total absence of any reference in all the numerous documents of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries must raise a doubt as to whether the figure was there at all; at least it seems likely that the grass had been allowed to grow over him during the later Middle Ages and that he was not re-cut until after the mid-seventeenth century, and a re-cut figure might bear only a vague resemblance to the original, particularly if this had been covered by grass for many years.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayley, A. R. 1910. The Civil War in Dorset.Google Scholar
Bettey, J. H. 1974. City and County Histories : Dorset.Google Scholar
Collins, A. 1752. Historical Collections of Noble Families.Google Scholar
Crawford, O. G. S. 1929. The Giant of Cerne, Antiquity, III, 27782.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, P. 1979. Denzil, first Lord Holles.Google Scholar
Darton, F. J. H. 1935. English fabric, 31931.Google Scholar
Gerard, , THOMAS, C. 1625. Survey of Dorsetshire, published under the name of JOHN COKER, 1732.Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V. 1980. The Cerne Abbas Giant 1764–1980, Antiquity, LIV, 1980, 2933.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchins, J. 1861–70. History of Dorset, 3rd Edition (1st Ed. 1774).Google Scholar
Leland, J. (ed.) L. T. Smith, Itinerary.Google Scholar
Malefijt, A. de Waal 1968. Homo Monstrosus, Scientific American, 219, October 1968, 11318.Google ScholarPubMed
Piggott, S. 1932. The name of the Giant of Cerne, Antiquity, VI, 21416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S. 1938. The Hercules Myth—beginnings and ends, Antiquity, XII, 32331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pococke, R. 1889. (Ed.) Cartwright, J. J., Travels Through England (1747–60), Camden Soc. N.S. XLII(2).Google Scholar
Underdown, D. 1979. The Chalk and the Cheese; Contrasts Among the English Clubmen, Past and Present, 85, November 1979, 2548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Victoria County History, 1908. Dorset, II, 538.Google Scholar
Wise, F. 1742. Further Observations upon the White Horse, 48.Google Scholar